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quote:

Originally posted by Sand Leaper And how do you suggest they do that?

Well i'm not a mod so that's not really my problem is it. They've asked for our 0.02$ worth, and I gave mine.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Mikey Mike Well i'm not a mod so that's not really my problem is it. They've asked for our 0.02$ worth, and I gave mine.

True, but don't you think a bit more constructive criticism would be a lot better?

mods & rules

I don't agree with moderation at all on a trance site when it comes to a public forum. Posting large files that cause hosting issues, fine, but if it comes to people speaking their minds, there cannot be and censorship, end of story. I am always surprised by Canadians and their willingness to have people censored. Forums lose their mandate if people cannot speak their minds.

Everything has a reasonable limit. Why blame Canadians?

quote:

Originally posted by torontotrance Everything has a reasonable limit. Why blame Canadians?

south park did it

Ian: "Why blame Canadians?" - Because TA is located in the GTA and I also live here. Day in and day out, I am astonished about this country's willingness to censor things. This is a country where unelected officials, in conjunction with those that run media concerns, determine what is allowable on the air. CBSC & CRTC are unelected, it is shameful therefore that they determine what can and can't be broadcast. I didn't elect them, they don't represent me. This is disturbing. TA forum is also full of censorship, which just perpetuates what I see as a bigger problem here. True free speech means that you can't censor because you disagree with what is being said. Voltaire said "I may not agree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it."

Well, first of all, I'd like to say that I've been a part of a lot of online communities, and TA is one of the best ones I've ever seen when it comes to being able to have quality conversations on a wide variety of topics. While this might partially be attributed to the fact that most of the members seem to be interested in making it as enjoyable place as possible, there is no doubt that good moderation is a major factor which has led to the success of this community. The moderators here at TA do a good job, in my opinion, and while they certainly make some decisions I feel are questionable, there aren't any of them who I specifically have a problem with or who I believe to be a chronic source of bad decisions. That said, I have been critical of some of the decisions and even policies of the moderators in the past. The important thing to realize, though, is that I've never been one to say that the mods have been doing a bad job. Rather, I merely think that there remains a great deal of room for improvement.

In my opinion, the key to being a good moderator (or a good group of moderators) is twofold: communication, and dedication. In the following paragraphs, I'll take a look at how I think each of these characteristics could be maximized. What, you thought this was going to be short?

Communication

Communication is vital to maintaining a strong community where the moderators� decisions are clear and understandable (even when you don't agree with them.) To be a good moderator, you have be both skilled at organizing and communicating your feelings on a matter and also be accessible to the community. There are two major aspects of communication I'd like to address:

1. Statement of Community Rules

This is, in my opinion, one of the things that's missing on TA right now. It often seems like no one, perhaps not even the moderators, knows precisely what is and is not allowed on the forums. This type of "interpretive" moderation seems to do a sufficient job (probably because we have quality moderators), but it lends itself to biased decisions and inconsistency, which judging by the other responses in this thread seem to be two of the major gripes people have with the mods. What I would like to see, personally, is a permanent sticky thread at the top of every forum which explains, in precise language, exactly what is considered a violation of forum rules, as well as any additional rules specific to that forum. Obviously the moderating staff would have to invest the time to discuss, construct, and publish such a document. However, in my opinion, if the moderating staff is truly dedicated to making TA the best community it can be, then something like this really needs to be done. Finally, I understand that no matter how much work the mods put in towards creating an official set of forum rules, there will always be unforeseen problems which can arise and require the intervention of mods. Nevertheless, I still think that an official rules document of some kind would help avert a lot of our problems, even though a lot of people probably wouldn't read it. In my view, it would add an air of legitimacy to the decisions of the moderators. Right now, it often seems as if decisions are just being made up on the spot. If people knew exactly what to expect, they would have a lot less to complain about.

2. User Complaints

User complaints can mean one of two things. Either one member of the community wishes to lodge a complaint against another in the form of an accusation of a violation of the forum rules, or a member of the community wishes to challenge the decision of a moderator regarding a specific decision. In either case, the current methodology is essentially "pm a mod and see if you get a response." Even though the moderators usually do a pretty good job of dealing with complaints, I think this could be improved upon. There are a lot of ways you could go about improving the system, but primarily the problem I see in it as it stands is that once again it moves the decision-making process of the moderators behind closed doors. This leaves people to speculate about how decisions are being made and leads to discontent among people who don't agree with/understand the decisions and the rationale behind them. One idea, and this is just an example, would be to make another sticky thread, or perhaps just use the forum rules thread, where people can report violations of forum rules. This could potentially make the moderators' job easier, because they could quickly view this thread to see if there were any major issues that required their attention if they didn't have time to read the whole forum. Then, the moderator could review the issue, post a decision and brief explanation there and take whatever action was necessary. After a few days, the posts regarding that particular issue could be deleted. Similarly, if someone wanted to complain (intelligently) about a moderator's decision, they could post their complaint there and get a further explanation if desired. Obviously, the moderator would still ultimately decide the best course of action to take, but I think it would help cut down on the discontent with moderating in general if people could at least consistently get a coherent response to their complaints.

Again, these methodologies are only ideas which happened to pop into my head as I was writing this. There are probably better ways to address these issues. The important message I'm trying to get across is that these are areas that could use some work if our community is to reach its full potential.

For a quick example of the type of problem I'm talking about, I hope no one will mind if I point out an example of a minor argument that has arisen in the politics forum between Cyrus King, a politics forum regular, and Wicked Neo, one of the forum moderators. You can read it in this thread if you'd like.

Essentially the problem is the Cyrus King is of the opinion that the situation resulting in his suspension from the politics forum was inequitable because he didn't receive sufficient notice. Wicked Neo claims (or seems to claim, this is actually a bit vague) that he did warn Cyrus King, and furthermore states that:

quote:

Originally posted by Wicked NeoI stand by my decsion to suspend you when i did, because of the numerous complaints i had about you, from more than one user, that the mods of this board have not been happy with your posts (i will add this, the senior mods of this forum usually discuss suspensions before we suspend someone, and the majority ruled in favour of your suspension, they veiwed your posts for themselves and agreed with myself and with the complaints i had had about you, the suspension was agreed with not a single senior mod objecting) and that it was not an isolated incident.

Now, I don't want to be seen as passing judgment on this particular situation. I don't see any reason why Wicked Neo or another mod would be out to get Cyrus King, and I have observed that Cyrus King occasionally allows his emotions to get the better of him and says some things that might offend people. At the same time, Wicked Neo really can't provide any evidence to support his claims that he warned Cyrus King, nor can he validate the nature or content of complaints he received about Cyrus King or his conversations with other moderators. I'm not accusing Wicked Neo of lying - far from it. Rather, I'm trying to illustrate an inherent flaw in the system that's being used to maintain order on the boards: that is, that all the important conversations, decisions, etc are occurring behind closed doors, in that they're either contained in PM communications or possibly on the mod forum. When the decision-making process is hidden in this manner, it leaves people with no choice but to speculate as to what really happened. This, in turn, leads to complaints about the moderators.

Dedication

The other aspect of good moderating that I wanted to discuss briefly is dedication. Seven years ago, I moderated a small (compared to TA) message board where people could discuss the computer game Starcraft. I understand that moderating even a small community, much less a large one like TA, requires a significant commitment of time. One of the issues that several other people in this thread have raised is that of inactive moderators, and/or moderators who do not consistently visit all the forums which they moderate.

While I don't see there as being any imminent need for a "crackdown" or even really any evidence of a lack of dedication on the part of our moderating staff, I'm sure some of these concerns are valid - especially in special topic forums, such as the amateur production forum and the politics forum. I don't have any specific gripes about moderators who may or may not be pulling their weight when it comes to moderating the forums. My only observation might be that it seems like a disproportionate amount of the work ends up being done by Wicked Neo, but I don't visit every forum so I really can't say.

The way I look at it is this: when you're a moderator, you have authority. But with authority comes responsibility. If a moderator isn't willing to invest the time to contribute positively to the community on a regular basis, I don't really think they have any business being a moderator. With that in mind, my only recommendation would be that Swamper re-evaluate his moderating staff on a regular basis to ensure that everyone who is entrusted with the authority of being a moderator is demonstrating a sufficient level of dedication and responsibility.

I personally believe that the moderating staff here at TA does an impressive job. I can only hope that my critique might empower them to do an even better job in the future.

Best Wishes,

Arbiter

Were you high when you wrote that? I envision some guy all tweaked out typing furiously with a 9 paragraph analysis of moderators. B-O-R-I-N-G. You take yourself far too seriously. Again, people should say whatever they want. You sound like Donald Rumsfeld with your verbal diarrhea, trying to limit what people say. Moderation is for places like North Korea or Sudan. No forward thinking person would stand for it. This has to be the forum with the biggest lemming syndrome I have ever seen. I expected a bunch of trance heads to be a little more individualistic than this. Please disable my login, moderators.

quote:

Originally posted by meanbastard Were you high when you wrote that? I envision some guy all tweaked out typing furiously with a 9 paragraph analysis of moderators. B-O-R-I-N-G. You take yourself far too seriously. Again, people should say whatever they want. You sound like Donald Rumsfeld with your verbal diarrhea, trying to limit what people say. Moderation is for places like North Korea or Sudan. No forward thinking person would stand for it. This has to be the forum with the biggest lemming syndrome I have ever seen. I expected a bunch of trance heads to be a little more individualistic than this. Please disable my login, moderators.

You won't find a bigger advocate of free speech than myself. However, there is a big difference between free speech and anarchy. I don't think you have very much experience with message boards if you honestly believe that an unmoderated forum can exist without rapidly degenerating into 99%+ spam, troll topics, and tired issues.

Additionally, in some cases there are legal issues whereby the site could be shut down if people discuss things like file sharing. In these instances, you can't realistically expect the operators of a message board to put themselves at risk just to allow people to post whatever inane thought happens to pop into their heads.

I think you'd be doing yourself a favor if you put a little more thought into your posts. While some of the issues you raise may be valid ones, you do them nothing but discredit by expressing them with such an overt disregard for logic.

Best Wishes,

Arbiter

hahahahahahahahahahaha!!! The Internet and forums are simply a way for anybody to surf porn and to to be rude to others anonymously. You take yourself too seriously. Related to Al Gore? Legal issues? ha! It will be three years before any case gets to civil court anyway, most websites and forums wash up before that kind of time frame anyway. I say what i want, when i want, how i want, to whom i want...end of story. By the way, i have been to many forums with nor arbiter, and they are excellent. You must have english roots.

quote:

Originally posted by meanbastard hahahahahahahahahahaha!!! The Internet and forums are simply a way for anybody to surf porn and to to be rude to others anonymously. You take yourself too seriously. Related to Al Gore? Legal issues? ha! It will be three years before any case gets to civil court anyway, most websites and forums wash up before that kind of time frame anyway. I say what i want, when i want, how i want, to whom i want...end of story. By the way, i have been to many forums with nor arbiter, and they are excellent. You must have english roots.

Bellend.

quote:

Originally posted by meanbastard hahahahahahahahahahaha!!! The Internet and forums are simply a way for anybody to surf porn and to to be rude to others anonymously. You take yourself too seriously. Related to Al Gore? Legal issues? ha! It will be three years before any case gets to civil court anyway, most websites and forums wash up before that kind of time frame anyway. I say what i want, when i want, how i want, to whom i want...end of story. By the way, i have been to many forums with nor arbiter, and they are excellent. You must have english roots.

This is constructive and in your own way of bullshit talking
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That is All, TA is one of the most lenient legitimate forums around which won't be shut down due to the riaa or die from ****s like you being around much. If you bothered to spend time here you'd realise we have a laugh & take the piss and are fun, but you come in and call us already, fuck off to your porn loser

go back to your homo-erotic culture, you fucking english ****. The English are the one race universally despised worldwide. And by the way, the fucking ball never actually crossed the line in 1966...

quote:

Originally posted by meanbastard go back to your homo-erotic culture, you fucking english ****. The English are the one race universally despised worldwide. And by the way, the fucking ball never actually crossed the line in 1966...

Bellend.

quote:

Originally posted by meanbastard go back to your homo-erotic culture, you fucking english ****. The English are the one race universally despised worldwide. And by the way, the fucking ball never actually crossed the line in 1966...

well let me appologise for being born in this country, should I go hang myself ?

And for your information, even if the ball hadn't crossed the line, we'd have won 3-2

Speaking of balls dropping, come back when yours have [mrmysterymode]bellend[/mrmysterymode]

this must be a troll. just ignore the dude.

quote:

Originally posted by meanbastard universally despised worldwide.

Well since you choose to speak English here, let me correct you, and award on the english best award ever

quote:

Originally posted by paranoik0 this must be a troll. just ignore the dude.

*gasp* Could it be? Are we not in Kansas anymore?

quote:

Originally posted by Ian^ south park did it

They're not even a real country anyway

looks like yet another thread is going to turn into flame war, maybe small, but it'll be enough to warm me up

be prepared

go home all of u!

quote:

Originally posted by TrAnCeAkI go home all of u!

I am home... but where is my lovely wife?

K enuff of the thread hijacking and back on topic please.

Gonna leave this as a sticky for about another week,
then i will write up a reveiw of all that you have commented on and see if u all agree . . .

quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Mystery I am home... but where is my lovely wife?

sorry neo just one more plz :P

your wife is coming! too many layovers at the airport :P

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